Calculus and an idealistic view of college

When I think of practical jobs, I think of cubicles. I think of forsaking one's dreams. And, unfortunately, I think of math.

Nowadays, I know people who (I imagine) not only dream of math, but dream of other things in a sophisticated language of integers, variables and maybe even derivatives. I am humbled by my ignorance, and by the ultimately unavoidable truth that I have never, not in high school and not in college, taken calculus.

But in an odd way, I have been kind of proud of this as well. Many of the people I know have taken calculus under great duress. I have a friend with all A's at Penn except for a C in calculus, and countless friends who have announced on Locust Walk, without prompting, a general word of advice for all those in earshot: "If you can possibly avoid calculus, don't take it."

It became a challenge. At stake, the direction of my future. Choose calculus, and be condemned to a life of "practical" jobs; end up working at a computer company or something, always wishing for another life. Avoid it somehow, and be free to pursue a career in whatever I wanted.

I talked to my best friend from high school on the phone, and she tried to convince me to back down. "Take it pass/fail." For her, calculus itself wasn't particularly interesting but, rather, a necessary step in discovering all of the things in life that are fascinating for a math major. "But I'm not a math major," I reminded her.

My first real image of college was overly idealistic. I hadn't yet started my senior year of high school, but I had already started working, with another one of my high school friends, at the Academy of Natural Sciences. We had chores to do in Center City and ended up going to Penn, buying pretzels and sitting at a wrought-iron table off of 36th Street, looking down on College Green. A stage was being set up in front of College Hall and spotlights were set up (for freshman convocation?). Round tables were put out on the Green, surrounded by chairs and with bottled water at each table setting. And then, slowly, students began to show up, wearing khakis and skirts and such, taking their places rather solemnly at the tables.

The perfection of the weather, the odd perspective, looking down on these people from up above, the beautiful buildings and the trees -- all of these things gave this moment an idyllic glaze that we could not shake off. My friend already knew that Penn was her dream school; she had known it for a long time. She could spout off tales about how at Penn, if they didn't have a course in a language you wanted to take, say, for example, an obscure African language that involved a special method of clicking one's tongue, Penn would find you a tutor, and the cost would be included in your tuition. Or once, after we walked past DuBois College House, she started explaining how if she went to Penn she would live there, because they had kitchens, and she would not have to get a meal plan.

I was less excited about the idea of college. To me, it meant leaving a life I had come to enjoy, and being forced to start again. There was no dorm I dreamed of living in, no course I was dying to take. And yet there was something so beautiful in the air that day, the kind of beauty that disappears if you try to hang onto it, like those Listerine breath strips they kept giving away for free at subway stations. Or rather, like a dream that if you try too hard to remember only slips further away.

But in any case, it was like a fairy tale. It seemed to give us a chance to live the dream of the rich and successful, of the people destined to change the world. Not everyone gets to. All of us have friends who have already given in to their demons, who have resigned themselves to lives they do not want. But perhaps we could cheat misery. College was maybe the answer.

The main flaw in that logic is that it suggests a good life can be won on the merits of a single good decision. Really, almost any moment in our lives offers us a choice between pursuing our dreams and giving in to our image of failure. When I leave college, I will start a career. But it need not be my last career. I will choose the image that most matches my dreams, but on the day that reality fails to match up, I will choose again.

On the day when I realize that I really do need to take calculus, I will.

Danielle Nagelberg is a junior International Relations major from Philadelphia. Schuylkill Punch appears on Tuesdays.

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